


taught the sun ways to travel

by oriflamme



Series: robots. robots everywhere [30]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Being Waspinator Is Suffering™, Gen, Memory Disorder, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (IDW), The Transformers: Till All Are One (IDW)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-18 23:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18128072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: It’s not so bad now. Waspinator can’t tell if he’s getting used to it, or if maybe Metroplex has better things to do than to keep an eye on a city-killer.Waspinator just wants to forget.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...It's March, isn't it.
> 
> Look, I can explain -
> 
> (Another one like the Chromia fic previous, where this won't make sense without some wheelfic context that isn't published yet. WHOOPS!)

Waspinator knows more than he remembers.

(And he wishes he remembered less.)

-

On a good day, Waspinator pretends that the atmosphere of the city doesn't tingle.

The summer sun oozes in the sky as Waspinator darts over the streets. High enough that the smell of blistering tires and baking metal rips away on the wind, low enough that the hum of his wings won't draw the terrifying scrutiny of stronger fliers overhead. The thought of seekers flying in formation makes Waspinator's ventilation system wheeze. He's an always-convenient target for buzzing, and no one needs a reason to be mean to Waspinator. Sometimes even the wingtip vortices of a passing jet can bowl Waspinator head over wings and send him careening in confused, bumbling circles until he remembers which way is up.

But no matter how high or how low he flies, the tingly sensation trails over the sensors of his antennae and wings in streams of heavy static. It eases a little once he reaches Censere, where Waspinator can touch down on one of the rough-paved roads and huddle under the buffer of the electromagnetic fields of so many other people.

( _So_ many.) 

But Waspinator is always being watched. Even in a crowd so big and unfamiliar and loud that he cringes under the sensory feedback. Even in Censere, where the apartments are constructed: lopsided, askew, overlapping, the hammered metal painted in splashes of color that don't make sense. Visual noise. When Waspinator pushes through the headache and squints until the colors make patterns, they form slogans and signposts, but also sometimes faces and swirls and cityscapes that don't exist anymore.

([Art,] which is the same as the word for a [riot.] Depends on the subglyphs. Waspinator can't keep track of it. None of his grammar works right anymore.

He is old, and he is broken.)

Cities are like that. Or they used to be. Wars happened – wars long enough that the years bleed and blur together in Waspinator's poor head, and he forgets which one had the [-us] and which was just Megatron's – and there aren't many cities anymore. Not ones that are properly alive, anyway. They always tingle and hum with life, a field of awareness quiet and pervasive enough to infuse a whole city without registering as more than background noise for most people. For people like Waspinator, though -

One of those things Waspinator isn't supposed to remember, doesn't want to remember; he shakes his head until the memories scatter in the fog again.

When the city first came back, the scrutiny was a pointed, prickling, perpetual thing. Not good, not good, to have the slow, deep attention of Titan fixed on Waspinator's back. He creeps and he skulks and lies as low as possible, but he can't shake the awareness. Censere isn't a city forged, but the bones of it are built on Metroplex's infrastructure. Even here, it's not safe.

It's not so bad now, though. Waspinator can't tell if he's getting used to it, or if maybe Metroplex has better things to do than to keep an eye on a city-killer.

Waspinator just wants to forget.

-

There are quiet places Waspinator could go. There are systems where he passes for organic, planets where no one projects an EM field to chafe his own raw, bars where the automated droids don't charge Waspinator for consuming waste fuel if he sits quietly in his corner and doesn't slurp too happily. None of the strictures [DO NOT THINK] forbid him from flying away from it all. He's done it before. No one will miss Waspinator.

But no matter how well Waspinator hides, someone always finds him. Always. They want what he can do, or they want what's in his head, and Waspinator never knows how to say no.

(It doesn't matter if he says he doesn't want to. It happens anyway.)

It's not so bad when it's Windvoice. She stays outside the city sometimes, in a place that's supposed to be quiet for her, and there's a spot on the roof where the sun filters through the leaves just right. Waspinator follows the meandering curve of the river and sets down in alt mode on the cool stone, wings tucked in tight, and drowses off in the ambient heat. Wind rustles through the tree's upper branches, but unless it blows in from the south Waspinator can't detect any of the flowers that tweak his chemoreceptors and make him sneeze. Too far from the coast to detect the sparkflower fields. Too far from a city for one of them to notice him, and squash him like a bug.

But Windvoice carries the city with her.

He twitches an antenna and rouses a little when the door slides back, anxiety thrumming through his wings even after Windvoice steps out. She walks past the gravel garden and the pale kneeling cushions and the glass-walled pool of green water that pours over edge to come sit by him, several careful meters away. The vibration shakes him hard enough to disrupt his vision until she spends a few minutes inspecting her tiny trees, more concerned with carefully arranging the thin blue and purple flowers and adjusting the wires wound around tiny branches than with watching Waspinator.

A _thud_ and a muffled curse from below jolt him again. But Chromia doesn't come charging up the stairs after him, angry ax at the ready. A stiff hand presses down on the seam of his thorax, steadying him with a faint pressure as his alt legs scrabble and spasm in the crunchy gravel. As his reeling processor comes back down from the spike of panic Waspinator resets his optics. The blinding panic is just the fractured, mosaic view of the sky and the sun. He tucks his legs underneath his weight and huddles, wings twitching every few beats when he checks anxiously over his shoulder to make sure the door's still shut tight. No one is angry at him yet.

Windvoice is very kind, and very quiet. Waspinator can count on his hand how many times she's yelled at him, and that's not bad at all. It's _especially_ good because Windvoice speaks like a city, and all the cities love her – Metroplex deeply, Caminus warmly, Vigilem violently. There are other cities, like [DON'T THINK THE NAME], but most of them are still far away and Waspinator only frets about them when he thinks about it too hard. She glances down at him carefully. Most of the blue tint burnt out of her optics a while ago; the focus of the ashen lenses is still intent enough to make Waspinator flinch.

She's not burning anymore. Waspinator can still trace the marks left behind, though. A tremor in the stiff left hand, pressed against his back. Dark shadows under the optics, so she always matches Starscream. A face that isn't hers, scrubbed away, the old paint nanites still glinting in a faint outline to Waspinator's vision.

She's herself, now. Her EM field sings like a city, the tingle diffuse enough that Waspinator can pretend it's familiar. They're almost the same. So close, but not. Light glimmers over her shoulder, behind the crest of her helm – electric blue and mauve, almost invisible in the harsh, burning noon sunlight, the subglyphs fading in and out as she shifts, but Waspinator could still read them if he tries.

It just feels like dying.

(The Titan panics, Waspinator panics [is panicking, will always _be_ panicking], and between the two of them neither one remembers how to fly. There are no safe places – just a burning needle in his spark, too sickeningly sharp to call a sympathy pain, and a single, leviathan thought consuming all of his processing power as it routes through him. Too colossal in scope for Waspinator to map the shape of. It shunts everything else aside and crushes everything that makes him _Waspinator_ just by co-opting that too-small space – automated life support and homeostatic functions, memory archives, the iron bars of the strictures that Waspinator isn't allowed to think about smashed to pieces. For the Titan, he contains barely a fraction of what it needs to calculate a trajectory through the interstices, to a new star, and he's going to melt inside his own shell before it finishes this fleeting, abyssal thought.

Then the Titan dies first, and takes its name and the spark of its space bridge with it. Waspinator is left alone with the cavernous, empty spaces of his mind, with nothing to fill in the distant shores.

He drifts for a long time. When he reaches for a way out, he knows he is so terribly alone.)

"Flatline sent word that you left the hospital," Windvoice says, in her normal voice. [concern] drifts in orbit around the curve of her pauldron. Windvoice didn't kill a Titan to become like one.

Waspinator ducks his head more and lets it rest against the roof by her knee, and flattens his antennae back when she moves her hand to rest on top of his helm. "Was scared," he mumbles, and the echo is an ache in his poor head: [scared][always]. "Waspinator didn't want to be there."

-

It's not so bad when Flatline tells Waspinator to go for a checkup. Out of all the strictures in his head, [comply] is one of the easier, quieter ones. It's a path of least resistance for Waspinator, when indecision pins him in place and his processor frets itself into paralysis; it builds off deep-coded instinct. He is so very alone, with no hive [DO NOT REMEMBER] and no role, and so when they find him (as they always do), Waspinator falls gratefully in line. It doesn't really matter who tells him what to do, or how scary Bludgeon and Shockwave are, once he can be useful.

At least now they're gone – Bludgeon dead, and Shockwave so far away Waspinator can pretend he doesn't exist.

But Flatline isn't there when Waspinator winds up in a room. This is a hospital in Metroplex, and the prickling atmosphere sets Waspinator off to buzz around the perimeter of the room as he waits for someone to arrive. It doesn't make sense that Flatline told him to come here, when Flatline works out of a clinic in Censere, and Waspinator's processor anxiously loops over that missing string of logic for half an hour with increasing, persistent disquiet. By the time one of the Autobot-branded medics comes in through the door, optics fixed on a datapad with a grumpy expression, Waspinator has thoroughly worked himself up in agitation, to the point where he can't process the Autobot's face. Can't read their public ID, can't tell who they _are_.

Then another person walks in, with the hands of a spider.

There are [DO NOT REMEMBER] an awful lot of jangling alarms ripping through Waspinator's head [COMPLY] as he bashes himself against the window, he thinks [DO NOT THINK].

Ratchet hollers over the shrill sounds forcing themselves out of Waspinator's vocalizer. Chromedome shrugs and scratches the back of his head. Someone with hands like that is always a threat, always, and Waspinator gladly lets Ratchet's orders turn into white noise in his overwhelmed sensors so he can continue to smash himself against the walls in a desperate scramble for freedom.

He feels remarkably clear-headed, in spite of it. The stricture for [ ~~DO NOT FEEL~~ ] never quite stuck. Waspinator clawed his way free - he escaped, and kept running, and so he's not a drone like everyone else he's not supposed to think about. There are gaps between the iron bars, and Waspinator can wiggle his way around and between them. On good days, when the universe hates him a little less than usual and no one pays attention to Waspinator, he clutches that close, a balm for his sore thoughts.

The hum in the air spikes, the nausea-inducing note of a Titan fixing on him, and Waspinator plasters himself against the glass in panic one last time.

Instead of smearing him across the floor, Metroplex opens the window, and Waspinator squeezes himself out the gap before anyone can recall him. The open air is so sweet.

-

Someone always finds Waspinator.

It's probably Waspinator's own fault, for tempting fate. He leaves a trail everywhere he goes, wistful, and tries to imagine that one day he'll find someone else's.

-

Lately, it's been harder to hope. They [DO NOT THINK] stripped so much out. _So_ much. He creeps along the bright edge of constant terror, the pulse of his spark shuddering through his too-empty processor, and what's left hurts to think about. The Titan blew his mind wide open and left a void, terrifying in its scope. Any bright, fluttering scraps of names and faces flicker as they sink into the thin fog of memory, but Waspinator knows, with a terrible certainty, that he's alone. They're not _anywhere_ , anymore. For however brief a moment, he and the Titan scraped along the underside of the universe, and Waspinator found only death.

Waspinator doesn't need medics and other people with spider hands to tell him that he is broken. He can see the surgical marks himself any time he looks in a mirror, the faded blue pinpricks that form a constellation along the back of his helm. Even if he can't always force himself to remember what they mean.

Windvoice trails her hand over them, absently, blindly. Waspinator is never sure how good standardformer optics are. Windvoice is _aware_ the same way cities are, the same way Waspinator is, and maybe she grasps more of it than Waspinator does before the world gets too big, too terrifying to absorb.

Her sigh is barely more than an exvent. Waspinator wilts anyway.

"You don't have to go back," she says, each word carefully nested, "if you don't want to. Remember?"

There are good scripts that Waspinator can repeat when people are mean, as many times as he has to, but they don't seem to work when someone is unhappy with him because he's done a bad job or failed or lost something. Waspinator has bad scripts for when that happens – babbling, sobbing, bleeding desperation markers into his field until it turns into a feedback loop. Waspinator never knows what to say when she is nice. Which is a real problem, since Windvoice is almost always nice.

Cautiously, he tries, "Yes, Wind-voice." The hesitation draws out long enough to fill the gaps with jumbled, crackly query and uncertainty glyphs. "It's…okay?"

Windvoice sighs again. Waspinator is used to that being a not-so-good sign. But she smiles sadly - doesn't start yelling or kick him off the roof. She touches his head one last time, then lets her hand drift to a stop, and Waspinator is left at a loss for what he said wrong. It's hard. It's hard, and Waspinator has never been good at _people_. He doesn't think they intended for him to still be a person at all.

So he leans against her side and hums, anxious and soothing at the same time, like he would for a hatchmate. They're not the same, but eventually Windvoice hums subvocally. It lingers in the air, the glyphs and semi-circles a mauve shading into golden pink as she adjusts pitch. The resonance settles into a pleasant drone, shifting until it almost matches him. Not close enough, though, to trigger another fireburst of panic in his processor. Her expression goes distant, attention on something just past the treetops.

Almost not alone, Waspinator lets the world blur, content.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More vague, subject-to-change spoilers for unwritten wheelfic chapters - read at your own risk. This is far more a jokey chapter than the one previous.

At a table in a corner of a bar called Maccadam’s that is also called Blurr’s, Waspinator sits. The earlier in the day, the better - Blurr doesn't turn on the cool white-blue lights and strobes until night, so Waspinator can curl up in the dim, hazy red lighting in his corner and play patience with himself. The holocard set is an old deck that used to be for public use in the bar before Waspinator sort of stopped letting anyone else use it. The regulars who brood over their drinks during the day don't care, and the ones who flood in later to fill the whole place with noise and chatter and flashy lights never notice when Waspinator slips out. The star and the spark suits tend to glitch out, and the sword cards are rubbed thin in places where mechs used to pinch them while gambling, but Waspinator frowns to himself and muddles his way through, and if the holoprojections sometimes flicker and overlap in ways that don't match the cards as he concentrates, no one pays attention to Waspinator in his corner. Blurr pours Waspinator a mug of thick, unfiltered purple energon, distractedly, and that's the afternoon made.

But now - Waspinator shudders - there is Swerve.

Blurr let him in with distracted orders - (Blurr is usually distracted, his mind going a million different directions at light speed, mixing drinks before people finish speaking) - to keep the drinks flowing while Blurr helped out around the city, and that was okay. But Swerve still shows up daily to chatter excitedly at Blurr; he inserts himself behind the bar counter and clumsily tries to wipe down and stack glasses and be otherwise useful, while Blurr works around him quickly enough - impatiently enough - that it is awkwardly obvious even to Waspinator that Swerve is…not wanted. Blurr always finds another patron to help or chat up, and Swerve's suggestions and gossip slow to a faltering, pensive crawl, and then to monosyllables, and then to silence. Which would be nice, except for how uncomfortable the atmosphere becomes as Swerve retreats into himself.

Then he realizes that Waspinator exists. Waspinator can always sense when Swerve is on the brink - mostly because the Autobot pantomimes his way through an increasingly silly series of facial contortions, and almost inserts his entire fist into his mouth as the urge to speak to Blurr's back rises. Then he bites his lip and ducks out with an empty tray to pretend to be busy clearing up all the glasses from all the people who aren't here, and Waspinator retracts his proboscis with an exvent as Swerve hurries over to unload on him.

"Yeah, I really think that I just gotta keep doing my own thing, y'know?" he tells Waspinator, his visor unreadable as words spew forth in a listless tide. It would almost be nice, if he talked a little slower; Waspinator can't always follow what's going on once Swerve kicks into high gear. "Honestly - this is fine! Working here has been a great collab, a real professional learning experience. But you know how it is. Rodimus is all fired up for Friendship Quest 2k19, and I do love me a good quest arc! Wouldn't miss it for anything. _Definitely_ gonna try out some of these new mood lighting options, once we kick Getaway to the curb and reclaim the ship, but I've also gotta keep the classic Swerve's aesthetic. Bright, clean lines, a healthy range of mineral enrichment additives, and a great window view while we careen around the universe having adventures like an out of control pinball machine! It's what the people want!"

Swerve spins and throws his hands wide, indicating the whole room, his smile swelling wider and wider as he goes on. The empty tray whacks the wall on the tail end of Swerve's swing, but apart from someone snorting into their energon, no one reacts.

Waspinator tries, he really does. But he's still busy puzzling out the way Swerve merged glyphs for the [[friend][ship]] pun, so he just nods along agreeably while the rest of the noise fills his audial sensors. "Sounds fun?" he says, to be polite and to buy more time to parse the rest. Everything just happens so much, so fast.

Even that small engagement is enough for Swerve to beam back at him, half his visor winking as he scoops up Waspinator's half-full mug and sets it on the tray. It sloshes a little onto the table, and Waspinator watches mournfully as Swerve flicks out a mesh cloth and sops up the purple splatter before Waspinator can try to sneak his proboscis back out and slurp. "Oh, you should absolutely come along!" Swerve says, with a boisterous nod. "Nothing like a good quest! I've already got the Pirates of the Caribbean queued up with Rewind for the first night back - never gets old to see Rodimus get all twitchy about people blowing holes in the ship. And we can do something about this junk you're drinking." Swerve raises Waspinator's mug and squints through the side, swishing it so that the cloudy precipitates at the bottom swirl - and slop over the side again as Swerve strokes his chin. This time, Waspinator manages to sneak a sip off the table, nodding along with Swerve all the while. "Yeah, you need more chromium and gold in your diet. You look a bit peaky. Trust me, I'm a metallurgist."

Waspinator resets his optics a few times. "Really…?" he says, quizzically, increasingly concerned as he inspects the back of his hand. The metal looks the same as always, but…

"Yup." Swerve pops the [p]. He does not seem nearly as concerned as Waspinator is starting to feel. "Don't worry, it'll be cool. Depending on how many people actively decided to mutiny back home, we're gonna need new faces to fill in the ensemble cast. Just in the background, you know, doesn't even have to be a speaking role. No pressure. I'll send you the coords for the crewdition. Probably just me and Mags this time, since Crosscut and Riptide currently exist in an unknowable, irredeemable state of Schrödinger's mutinous bastardhood until we catch up with the _Lost Light_." A pause, while Swerve waits expectantly. "Well, I know Brainstorm will appreciate that one, at least."

Another pun, and an Earth word. Waspinator's head really starts to throb in earnest. "Okay?" he promises, a little dazed. When someone tells him to do something that directly, there's really only one way to answer.

Swerve's smile splits his face again. "Great! Don't forget to bring your resume!" Then he skips off back to the bar in high spirits, babbling details as he goes. Forlorn, Waspinator can only hope that he comes back with a drink to replace the one Waspinator just lost. Everything gets taken from Waspinator.

To make sure, Waspinator uncurls from his seat and shuffles carefully up to the bar next to Swindle, so Blurr can't round on him in a terrifying onslaught of customer service. Swindle is always too busy to look up from his handheld when he answers Waspinator's questions these days, but he _does_ answer them. Usually. Unless it costs too much and Waspinator can't afford the answer, no matter how many of Swindle's errands he runs. Sometimes the stuff that he sells doesn't work right or breaks after Waspinator uses it a few times, but Swindle always has an explanation and a slippery smile and never holds optic contact for long, which is nice. Waspinator is never a fan of prolonged eye contact.

(Waspinator isn't dumb enough to say out loud that Swindle gives him cheap stuff on purpose. Swindle doesn't like it when people do that, and no one else will get Waspinator honeyoil toffee secreted from Melitta-δ or shiny, flimsy metal spinners from Earth if Swindle cracks down on them to make Waspinator feel bad.

When in doubt, Waspinator just assumes everyone is dangerous. Swindle is not as bad as people like Starscream, but dangerous is dangerous.)

"Waspinator has an interview," Waspinator says. Just to confirm. Sometimes he misunderstands things, and people throw things at him until he flees, and Waspinator's chest tightens with pre-emptive anxiety just thinking about it.

Swindle keeps gnawing at the end of the curly straw, absorbed in the split screen of his handheld datapad. His drink is down to the last dregs, but he's too busy popping bubbles full of dollar signs on the top half of the screen to order a refill. Waspinator can't tell if it's a game or just the economy. "Uh-huh. Sure sounds like it, buzz bot," Swindle agrees, tapping out a reply to the text in the bottom screen, and then swipes down to dismiss it with a sigh. His EM field is a jarring, confusing jitter, like most people's, but Waspinator adjusted to the regulars of Maccadam's a whole planet ago and he's pretty sure that was a Blast Off sigh. It's really obvious. Swindle hates when people suggest that, though.

Then Swindle snaps a finger and points at Waspinator. Waspinator cringes. Nothing hits him, though. Today really _has_ been a good day! "Hey, think you got time to run one more errand for me? I'll make it worth your while," Swindle says instead, glancing up just long enough to flash Waspinator a winning smile and a wink.

Waspinator sighs, and complies.

-

"Waspinator is just not sure if he's qualified for this kind of interview," Waspinator explains, letting a front leg dangle over the edge of a crate. The slow, meandering flight to the beach took long enough for Waspinator's processor to fill with trepidation along the way. He's finished processing it all as best he can - he's still stumped by some of Swerve's word choices - and now the thought of auditioning for the crew of the _Lost Light_ is as daunting as a Titan's attention. "Waspinator is not so good under pressure! Also, is not sure Waspinator _has_ a resume."

He's racked his brain trying to remember. This is deeply troubling. He frets his forward legs against each other, trying to sift through the fog of memory, but he's not sure that anyone has ever asked him for a resume before at all. Usually he just shows up and does what he's told.

The Eukarian diver grunts as she shoves another crate onto the shore. Her broad, blue and green shell is four times Waspinator's size, and each paddling flipper as long as he is tall. Drainage vents sluice gallons of water where the protoform peeks out of the carapace every time she emerges from the ocean. "The opinions of turf-walkers are irrelevant," she advises, deadpan, the spherical lenses of her eyes squinting as she surveys the bottles of mineral sand and salt and metal ore for one last count. Waspinator has no idea who wants this stuff or where Swindle ships it, but the sand is very pretty - swirls of violet and blue from the deep ocean, and pink and silver from the shelf. "Eat them."

Waspinator is pretty sure she's joking. Probably. Sometimes Decepticons had to, but it was never a good time. A whole lot of gnawing - and then superiors come and yell at everyone. Not fun. "Also, Waspinator needs two letters of recommendation."

And that, Waspinator thinks, is more daunting than all the rest put together.

The Eukarian looks up from the crate, side eyes Waspinator for a long moment, and then pushes back off the sand as the fan blades embedded in her flippers start to churn up the surf. Wings blurring, Waspinator collects the crates and zooms back toward the city.

-

Swindle seals his datapad after scribbling off the letter in exchange. But he also dictates every word of it out loud as Waspinator wrings his hands and tries to look appropriately desperate, so Waspinator knows what it says anyway. "Sweet but dim. Mostly harmless. Connections with Speaker Windvoice."

Then Waspinator sneaks into Metroplex, filled with consternation.

Well. It's not so much sneaking as it is vibrating so hard he can feel his processor rattling in his head. Terror is a bright-burning blade, whiting out all his thoughts until all he has is the urgent need to _move forward._ When the tingling awareness starts to intensify and sharpen in earnest, static electricity crackles between his vibrating wings until his sensors numb. Makes him dizzy. Waspinator sets down and walks along the sides of buildings instead, one creeping step at a time. He radiates misery and imploring supplication in sheer desperation, and somehow makes it to the communications terminal without Metroplex swatting his thoughts away and leaving him confused and adrift. Waspinator is keenly aware of the circuits in the wall behind him as he timidly accesses the long-range comms, tapping a single key at a time and checking over his shoulder after each.

When Shockwave answers, he faints.

A minute later, Waspinator shakes off the black, swirling terror, and hauls himself upright. The projection of Shockwave stares down at him with a polite, unblinking eye. He is as calmly, inexorably terrifying as Waspinator remembers.

He is also currently a very soothing pastel pink.

"Waspinator needs a job reference," Waspinator blurts out, clasping his claws together, his sibilants buzzing with terror.

After a long pause - Waspinator almost passes out again in self-defense - Shockwave cocks his helm to the side. "Heard and granted," he says, and narrows his optic into a smile. " _Do_ have fun."

Then the projection winks out. An encrypted file arrives on Waspinator's datapad a moment later, sealed by the codes of Decepticon high command.

Waspinator is just going to. Lie down for a second. Right here.

The weight of Metroplex's sustained attention is a crushing weight on his spark as Waspinator tries to wheeze through the panic attack in peace. He's too deep in an unfamiliar Titan, buried under thousands and thousands of tons of living metal that _hates him_ , and he can't remember how to get out.

(If this were [home][DO NOT REMEMBER] he'd know how. He'd know the hexagon halls; he'd know the arcing lines in ultraviolet; he'd know the traces of everyone who walked the same path before him. But it is - she is - [DO NOT THINK THE NAME.])

Then the tingling awareness eases off. [apology] lingers in the air over the terminal, but Waspinator can't read the rest from this angle, and he's half-sure he's imagining it anyway.

Two people with pale-painted faces peer into the comms room, their expressions and IDs an incomprehensible blur as Waspinator twitches, before Windvoice comes to lead him out of the bowels of Metroplex. Waspinator clutches his datapad close and stumbles after her, her outline bright even before the woozy darkness clears from his visual sensors.

-

Waspinator starts off relieved that the crewdition is held outside the city, on the main shuttle field. Not far enough away to escape the presence of a city - hard to do that here, with multiple Titans in close proximity - but enough.

He should have known better. The universe hates Waspinator.

Swerve latches onto him at the city entrance and doesn't let go. As he's towed toward the ship, Waspinator casts a mournful glance back. But it's too late. "So, turns out you're the only one interviewing," Swerve says, waving a wild hand at the ship itself before ushering Waspinator inside. They've done some remodeling since Waspinator last flew over the shuttle field, but the ship was still very clearly shaped like Rodimus's head at some point in its construction. It's red, gold, and hot pink flames all the way down. Someone painted a ship designation on the outside but left it unfinished, with multiple mottos crossed out and painted over with haphazard strokes. Waspinator can still read most of it.

_ The Rodpod ~~2.0~~ 3.0  _

_ ~~This Time It's Personal~~ _

_ ~~Let Joy Be Unconfined~~ _

_ ~~The Power of Friendship~~ _

_ Vīximus, B- _

The interior, thankfully, is a normal grey that doesn't make Waspinator's optics fizzle. "Sunstreaker's a legacy - original crew perks, and all that jazz. And let's just say that whatever happens in medical? Stays in medical. AKA I'm not touching that one with a ten-meter pole," Swerve continues.

Waspinator nods along weakly as Swerve cheerfully propels him into a seat in a small, rectangular room. The designation Sunstreaker raises a prickle of alarm, but Waspinator's currently operating at a level of anxiety that makes it difficult to remember. He can't fan his wings out and vibrate properly in a room this cramped. He sets his datapads of recommendation on the table before he can drop one, and starts fidgeting with them as he cranes around to scan the room again. He polished both his main and his alt optic facets nicely this morning, so everything's a little sharper than he's used to.

Then a whole Ultra Magnus squeezes in through the door.

This takes some doing, because there is an awful lot of him and not a lot of door.

Waspinator is not sure, but he thinks fainting at an interview is a bad idea. Probably. His knees jitter against each other under the table as he clears a whimper in his throat and flattens his antennae.

Ultra Magnus seats himself with a stony expression. Swerve hops up in the chair beside him, still chattering despite the presence of the law. "Anyway, you're in luck! We almost weren't going to hold crewditions at all, since technically it was all a hilarious, incredibly clever jape last time, but Ultra Magnus has seen the light! We're -"

"- going to screen new additions properly," Ultra Magnus finishes, a grim look in his optics as he looms over the table, reaches out - Waspinator cringes reflexively - and picks up the datapads. They fit in the palm of his hand. "For once. Please stop calling it a 'crewdition.' That is not a word. We've talked about this, Swerve."

Swerve slams a fist against the table. Waspinator jumps and - with monumental self-control - doesn't zip up to cling to the ceiling. "What's your favorite color!" Swerve demands, visor suddenly narrow.

"Green!" Waspinator says, clutching his face in alarm.

Swerve clicks his vocalizer and fires back, "Name?!"

Suddenly, Waspinator is questioning his entire life. Millions of years of foggy, tattered memory, and _oh slag what is his name._ "Waspinator doesn't know!" he wails. "Waspinator is so sorry! Is not good under pressure!"

Ultra Magnus pinches the brow of his nose and exvents a deep, long-suffering sigh. "Waspinator - known Decepticon. Ex-detached flier unit of the Titan Hunter squadron under Bludgeon, operating out of [Heavy Transport D|X.V. DIN #2013 \- _Empirion_ ]," he drones over Swerve's next question, like a steamroller. He lists off the facts in a composed, even monotone, and Waspinator could weep with relief at how easy that voice is to listen to. "Granted amnesty twice, under the Reintegration Act and after assisting Shockwave with…the incident. Risk of future criminal activity: moderate, pending medical-related extenuating factors."

And just like that, all the scattered pieces settle firmly back into place.

(Too firmly - there's something uncomfortable to think about buried in Ultra Magnus's last statement. Flatline and Ratchet and Windvoice all wanted to talk to Waspinator about it, but Waspinator is very good at letting his thoughts fly away into the wide-open reaches of his mind when he has enough warning. Before it can hurt.)

Waspinator blinks and shakes his head, and tries to look as pathetically grateful on the outside as he feels on the inside.

"So, prior quest experience? Not bad, not bad. Almost enough to get you on the shortlist." Swerve strokes his chin, and Waspinator switches his focus back to him in despair. One of the datapads has found its way into Swerve's hands. He just frowns and smacks the side of it. "Did you use the right file extension for this letter of reference? 'Cause it's locked up pretty tight."

Honestly, in the shuffle, Waspinator has already lost track of which datapad has what on it. "Waspinator has no idea."

"Give me that." Deeply disapproving, Ultra Magnus retrieves the datapad over Swerve's grumbling protests. His stern frown deepens as he inspects the screen. "This is a Decepticon high command encryption."

Swerve winces. "Don't say it."

"I've already called him. He should be here in a moment," Ultra Magnus finishes, flipping to the next datapad as he ignores Swerve's long groan. He arches a brow.

Dread fills Waspinator. Two people this close is already enough to make the room hum uncomfortably. "Who else -" he starts to ask over Swerve's on-going groan, just as a short, sharp rap knocks against the door. It opens when Ultra Magnus gestures.

Megatron walks in.

Waspinator shrieks and slams the chair backward so he can either faint or prostrate himself properly. He overestimates how much room he has to work with in blind panic, and hits the wall back and wings first; the jolt of pain through the thin sensors makes the room spin.

A massive hand steadies him by the shoulder. "There, there, Waspinator," the scourge of the Galaxias Kyklos says, absently, as he accepts the datapad from Ultra Magnus and gently pops Waspinator back into his seat. "Good grief. Is this from Shockwave?"

Somehow they've all been in the same room as Megatron for ten seconds without dying. Waspinator thinks he might spontaneously combust from terror. There are two different red symbols on Megatron, neither of which Waspinator can fully process while he's busy screaming internally, and no one seems surprised by this. Worst of all, Waspinator doesn't think he has a good script to cover dealing with Megatron himself. "Waspinator is honored to be in this one's service!" he babbles, vocalizer cracking. "Please do not kill Waspinator for job hunting!"

The Slagmaker's expression softens as he looks up from the datapad, and he pats Waspinator's shoulder again as he hands it back to Ultra Magnus. Waspinator is fairly sure he's hallucinating now. Or maybe his spark burst in his chest from sheer terror, and death is a very cramped storage closet. Truly, this is his nightmare. "Just co-captain," Megatron says, with a rueful twist to his smile. Then he indicates the datapad with a faint grimace as he releases Waspinator. "Definitely one of Shockwave's. I apologize in advance for what is about to be inflicted on you."

Ultra Magnus grimaces back. "It looks as though it's formatted with the correct margins, at least," he says, scanning through the letter. "Unlike Swind-"

Then Ultra Magnus breaks off, appalled. Waspinator anxiously chafes his hands together as he looks on.

But whatever Ultra Magnus reads appears to have broken him. "Let me see," Swerve says, and plucks the datapad from Ultra Magnus's slack hand with worrying ease. "Huh. 'To whom it may concern -'"

Swerve breaks off and covers his mouth with a hand. His face blanches to an ashen grey as he keeps reading; the color slowly drains from his visor. As his jaw drops in open-mouthed shock, his hand migrates further in to stifle the strangled noises of existential horror.

"You may want to stop reading," Megatron advises, weary. "Shockwave is just like that. The yearly evaluations were always intrinsically horrifying."

"But his punctuation and kerning are _pristine_ ," Ultra Magnus says. His hollow gaze is fixed at the wall over Waspinator's head, transfixed by an unseen horror.

“Tyrest once attempted to have Shockwave’s reports declared a war crime," Megatron adds, fondly reminiscent.

"Is it legal for him to use emoticons like that?" Swerve rasps, almost in tears. " _How is he getting away with this?_ "

Shaking his head, Megatron reaches over the table again. This time, Waspinator recognizes the Autobot symbol and the medical insignia laced over his chest and shoulders. "I'm confiscating that."

He takes the datapad from Swerve's limp hand and exits the room, leaving devastation in his wake. Waspinator can respect that.

"Waspinator does not think he's allowed to ever wash this shoulder again," Waspinator says, in the lingering silence.

-

In the end, the decision is up to Waspinator. No one actually informs him whether he passed the audition or not - he just skulks out while Ultra Magnus and Swerve sit there, traumatized, and no one stops him. No one calls him back for a second round, either.

But he thinks it might be nice to get away for a bit! See the stars, stretch his wings. He likes travelling; he just doesn't like travelling alone. Sure, it will mean flying on the same ship as Megatron - who somehow knows Waspinator by name - but Waspinator used to travel with scary people all the time! It hasn't killed him yet! 

Right?

-

As usual, this is the worst mistake of Waspinator's life.

-

He shows up on launch day, abuzz as much with excitement as with nerves. Not even cutting over the northern sector of Metroplex can put a damper on his mood. The air is crisp, his head feels clear, and he just finished stealthily dumping all of his accumulated junk in his neighbor’s apartment in case they want free stuff. A lot of it is stuff that Waspinator wanted when his head was fuzzy, but none of it was stuff he _needs_. Especially not on a small ship. Waspinator feels lighter already.

(There is an undercurrent in the depths of Waspinator’s processor – a soundless, throbbing note that aches for the stars - and Waspinator is _going_.)

Shifting out of alt mode, Waspinator breezes over the crowd that’s circulating around the edge of the main field. A lot of important people have shown up to see the ship off, including nice Windvoice, and Waspinator waves as he skims overhead. Windvoice raises a hand to shield her optics against the glare of the sun - then raises it higher in a wave, her smile faint and her helm a halo of [ave atque vale].

Unfortunately, Starscream is standing right next to her, like a gargoyle. He stares dead at Waspinator, squinting. Dangerously.

Pulsing red alarm sirens fill Waspinator's head up to the brim, and he flies in a dizzyingly tight corkscrew until he hits the side of the ship, bumps off a few decorative fins, and finally crawls inside. Waspinator takes a second on the ceiling to compose himself, the shivers working their way out of his legs, before he sets his feet on the floor and peeks curiously around the first door he finds. Everyone seems too busy to pay attention to Waspinator, so he’s able to slip around without anyone confirming or denying that he’s actually allowed to be here.

The first door opens on a compact medbay, where the ice in the air burns Waspinator’s EM field on contact, and someone with wonderful, awful, [ _awe-full_ ] hands helps Velocity stack medical grade cubes in the corner.

“- just give me a reason, Pharma,” Ratchet finishes, with an air of bitter finality. “It doesn’t have to be a good one. Any suspicious calls, any misplaced inventory that doesn’t add up, and you’re done. I won’t tell Rodimus to wait until there’s a planet outside the airlock.”

Back ramrod straight, Pharma lets the next pallet slip between his fingers to drop on top of the stack with a sharp clatter of reinforced glass. Velocity flinches, her optics wide and worried. “Bold of you to assume I care,” Pharma drawls, his smile smooth as silk.

…Waspinator has absolutely no context for any of this. Confrontation makes him want to purge his tanks, though. Humming anxiously, he ducks back out the door and smacks facefirst into someone’s shoulder wheel. It smarts a little, but nothing Waspinator can't handle -

“Oh,” Chromedome says. “You. Hey there."

Waspinator cycles a very steady, very deep vent, and then screams.

Before any snatching hands can grab him he bolts, making a beeline around Chromedome, and pelts into the next open room. Too many hands, too many fields -

"And then," Deadlock says, as he amiably helps a minibot stow away cargo, "Perceptor and I went through the Swarm and squashed that detachment like -" His optics fix on Waspinator still creased in a friendly smile, his mouth moving in the split second before recognition dawns, almost in slow motion. Too late. "- bu _ohhh Primus_."

Waspinator flings back his head and screams again as he scrambles back out into the hall. Wrong way, wrong way, but Chromedome and his spider hands are now between Waspinator and the main ramp. The next seemingly-clear opening turns out to be a window that Waspinator bashes himself against twice before giving it up as a bad job. He veers down another corridor, cold condensation prickling under his armor as he shakes, corkscrewing in erratic spirals as he searches frantically for another escape route.

-

("So, um, why did you program your early early warning system to chortle ominously in the face of uncertain doom?" Nautica asks, her voice dubious, as Waspinator staggers past. She leans over Brainstorm's wing, skeptical. "Just asking. For the record."

Brainstorm whacks the side of the device with a disgruntled expression. "I didn't. Though I totally should have."

Nautica rolls her optics. "Very funny, Brainstorm. Fine, keep your secrets."

[Ohohoho!] the early early warning system chortles to itself.)

-

Midway down the next corridor, a warbling cry intercepts him. Waspinator freezes.

Which doesn't work out so good mid-flight; he hits the ground floundering. But the shock wiped the panic-driven loops of his processor clear. And this time, when Waspinator screeches, broken and confused and disbelieving, the sound of claws scrabbling on bare metal clatters down the hall.

A thorny beetle alt rounds the corner. It launches itself at Waspinator with wild, deliriously blissful abandon, and Waspinator catches it on reflex. All four round, beady orange optics scrunch behind its mask as the beetle butts its head against him in joy.

Something is terribly wrong with it. Waspinator knows, and doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to remember. But someone has given it a makeshift public ID tag - [Bob[he]] \- to patch the gaping, ragged hole where its medial cortex should be, and it leaks friendly electro-pheromonal markers like a sieve, and its EM field meshes with Waspinator's so closely that it makes Waspinator sick. [Friend[!]] it radiates at him, oblivious to Waspinator's discomfort.

Waspinator glances back over his shoulder. He can detect voices from both ends of the hall now, and there are at least two threats terrifying enough to mash Waspinator's panic button on the ship - including Deadlock, slayer of [many]. _So_ many. "Is not safe here," Waspinator informs it.

The beetle chirrs back, content to latch onto him. [Hide/burrow/nest[!]] it pings back, an instinctive suggestion. With no other ideas and the voices drawing nearer, Waspinator flings open the nearest storage closet and wedges them inside so he can cower properly.

Bob settles with a snuffling, contented sound the moment he slams the door shut, patient and expectant. It is still latched onto him with all of its grasping claws. There's no real alarm in its EM field; it just mirrors Waspinator's.

And dimly - so dimly that Waspinator wants to cry - the beetle is pleased to have fulfilled its purpose. It did what it was trained to do. 

Waspinator finds himself abruptly aware that he's the smartest person in the room. This is a distinctly uncomfortable thing to realize, and he's not sure he likes it. Titans have minds like galaxies, and Waspinator's frame of reference forcefully adjusted to compensate to a world that is so frighteningly large at times. He _wants_ to take the [friendly] resonance at face value.

But Bob doesn't bother to hide the expectation that a [best friend] will arrive soon to take the lead. Why should it? It doesn't realize that there's anything amiss, and Waspinator sees too much these days.

Waspinator wants to bury his head and pretend he never noticed the extra layer of implication in Bob's simple field, so it will stop making his brain hurt. He folds up, shivering so hard that the jugs of cleaning fluid start to rattle with him as he tries to squirm deeper. Then, miserably, he shuts down his optics and tries to reach. Nice Windvoice is right outside - if he can just say something she can hear -

But Waspinator isn't good enough. When he prods at the ocean of damaged, fog-filled space in his mind and pushes out, a cold bolt of pain shoots right through his brain like he drank one of those Camien frosted cubes too fast. The far shore of that ocean of space is too distant for him to find a way out. He clutches his helm with a strangled noise as the abyss yawns in his head. The dark room pulses and throbs, lurches so hard that Waspinator thinks he should be tumbling sting over head down into a gravity well. He certainly feels dizzy and dazed enough. His limbs shoot out to brace him against the walls, shaky and brittle, but he's not actually falling.

Oh. Wait. That's not Waspinator's head spinning.

That's the ship taking off.

Bob chirrups happily, turns a circle in his lap, and rests its head on its claws to wait.

-

It takes a few hours. Waspinator suspects that everyone on board the ship just had better things to do. Every so often someone will bustle by, but no one peeks inside for a long time.

Which is fair. As long as there are more important things to do, people aren't hurting Waspinator! Which is what he suspects is going to happen when the insect-hunters catch up to him. If he could just make himself as unimportant as possible, maybe he'll be safe. Definitely something for Waspinator to ponder on a better brain day.

Instead, a quiet _vmmmm_ hums outside the door as someone approaches. Waspinator can't curl up any smaller than he has. There is nowhere to go as the noise comes a slow stop outside and Waspinator's sparkrate rises in fits and starts.

Bob perks up its antennae in excitement when the door slides open instead of exploding inward. Its blunt, thorny barbs made the small space hard to maneuver in, and one barb knocks the next cooling hyperventilation cycle right out of Waspinator as Bob shoves off his chest and bounds into Sunstreaker's lap.

Sunstreaker, who has also killed [many.] The death electro-pheromones of drones may fade, but Waspinator knows. Waspinator gulps a non-vent and goes back to hyperventilating, stricken, as he stares up at the mech in the hovering assistive device.

Sunstreaker pinches the bridge of his nose. "This is so not my job," he mutters. Then he raises his voice and calls, wearily: "Yup. Found him."

-

He's not technically a stowaway.

But Waspinator is too scared to argue his case when a shell-less, deeply unamused Minimus Ambus escorts him to the bridge to be judged by Megatron _and_ Rodimus at the same time. Deadlock is also here, though he lurks on the sidelines with Ratchet with a guilty expression. Waspinator is tempted to get down on both knees and wail for mercy, but instead he locks up and stands there, trembling, as he waits for the final verdict. Bob happily galumphed after Sunstreaker toward the opposite end of the ship, and there is no one to distract Waspinator from the weighty presence of multiple significant, horribly charismatic people packed into the room.

"At least one of his references was impeccable," Megatron puts in, perfectly mild. He doesn't look up from his work. Waspinator thanks every star in the sky that Megatron continues to have more important things to do than focus on Waspinator's sorry state.

"One of his references was a Class S metaphysical threat," Minimus Ambus says, sounding deeply aggrieved. It's not so bad now that he is short and a nice shade of green and white, but Waspinator maintains a safe level of terrified respect. "I still have no idea how to file that in the crew records when it should be sealed under Protocol III. Brainstorm wants to sue for copyright infringement -"

A loud whistle interrupts him. Rodimus dramatically spins around in the co-captain's chair, and slams to a stop so hard when he swivels to face them that curls of raspberry-pink smoke rise from his heels. "What _I_ want to know," Rodimus says, looking utterly disgusted, "is why _no one told me -_ me! - that we've been holding crewditions!" He pauses - then adds, "I mean, seriously, guys? Come on! Crew auditions? That's basically the best idea ever!"

"See? That's what I said!" Swerve says, throwing his hands up in the air.

"And yet you didn't invite me to any of them!" Rodimus retorts, kicking back in his seat and folding one foot over his knee in a casual lounge. His feet are still on fire, Waspinator notes. Just a little. "Rude."

Maybe Waspinator will get lucky, and they'll argue amongst themselves long enough for him to sneak out before things get heated. Maybe.

But no. Just when Waspinator shoots a longing glance at the waiting door and estimates his chances of zooming out, Rodimus rounds on him with a snap of his fingers. As usual, Waspinator twitches. "You! I just have one more question."

This is almost worse than having things thrown at Waspinator. Now it feels like everyone is watching him. Waspinator wants a refund. "Yes?" he says, fidgeting miserably in place.

Rodimus's optics are a brilliant, burning blue as he leans forward, steepling his fingers. "What," he says, with another dramatic pause, "does friendship mean to _you_?"

Megatron quietly buries his face in a hand.

Oh no. This is serious. Waspinator has no idea how to answer a question like that.

He does what he does best. He panics. "Waspinator has never had any real friends before!" he says, shrilly. "But Waspinator appreciates the opportunity to try to make some!"

For a long moment, Waspinator's paint crawls under Rodimus's unblinking stare. Then Rodimus lowers his steepled hands, and very clearly mouths 'no friends' to Deadlock across the room, as if to confirm.

Deadlock shrugs. Dangerously.

"Well, that's…pretty much the saddest thing I've ever heard," Rodimus says, slowly. Then a fresh, crooked smile blooms across his face, and he shoots a pair of finger pistols at Waspinator. "But you've got the spirit! Welcome aboard."

Waspinator ducks.

-

It takes him a while to find the office, once they transition from the Rodpod 3.0 to an actual ship. It's located in a very forgettable hallway, tucked away from most of the regular habsuites. Waspinator must drift past it at least five times before he realizes and remembers to stop.

("Just to talk. He listens well," Megatron says, when he first steers Waspinator in that direction. Waspinator still doesn't understand a lot of things, but he understands the way Megatron is never alone in a room with Chromedome. "It helps.")

Rung looks up from the scattered pieces of a model ship on his desk, and smiles when Waspinator peers in through a crack in the door.

-

Best mistake of Waspinator's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Actual footage of Waspinator screaming.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF4NFRpvl8)
> 
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> [Actual footage of Waspinator forgetting his own name.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQJhvs4amQ)

**Author's Note:**

> There will be another chapter in a day or so. The tone shifts a little, so I decided to split it off from this one.


End file.
